Galaxy S7 / S7 Edge

Zorachus

Zorachus

[H]F Junkie
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http://phandroid.com/2016/01/27/galaxy-s7-edge-plus-cancelled/

Two Galaxy S7's being released on March 11th;

- 5.1" standard Galaxy S7
- 5.5" Edge Galaxy S7

That's it, no S7 Plus, they don't want an 5.7" S7 Plus as they're afraid that's too much of the Note phablet type, which releases late Summer.

Good news are some sweet spec's;

- Samsung will, in fact, implement a microSD slot
- Samsung will employ batteries of 3,000mAh ( S7 ) and 3,600mAh ( S7 Edge ), respectively.
- The devices will have 4GB of RAM and use either Exynos 8890 or Snapdragon 820 ( U.S. ).
- The devices will be water resistant.
- Toned down Touchwiz with direct help from Google
- Improved display technology

With the U.S. versions getting the SD820, does that mean custom ROM development should be pretty good as opposed to the Exynos ? And with the SD820 hopefully CM13 ROM on the S7 ?


The SD820 vs. Samsung's 7420 used in the Note 5 last year. SD820 = 20% faster in single-core, and about 5% slower in multi-core. The SD820 uses 30% less power than the SD810, and is also built on the new smaller die process making it more efficient and cooler running, and the SD820 is 40% faster than the SD810.
 
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Doesn't matter what SoC they put in it, it will run good for a few weeks/months, then run like shit after some garbage update Samsung puts out. My almost 2 year old M8 runs faster than my wife's GS6 right now in general usage, esp. when using the app switcher to multitask, despite having 1GB more RAM, and the Exynos and UFS 2.0 chips destroying my M8's hardware in raw speed. Though my M8 is on a stockish (Sense 7) based ROM from the dev edition M8, the GS6 should still not have a prob keeping up on Lollipop.

We're at a point where any hardware is fast enough to not matter what SoC they're using. They just need to unfuck their software to properly take advantage of it now. The hardware makers should just focus on power efficiency now instead of raw speeds (although I understand faster speeds is also a byproduct of natural innovation), because in real/normal usage, 98% of their users aren't going to take advantage of it really, but they'll damn sure appreciate better battery life if you can give that to them.
 
But a good AOSP ROM on that hardware would be pretty sweet.

I really only have three phones on my wait and see wish list;

- OnePlus Three ( Metal body, AMOLED display, SD820 + 4GB RAM + AOSP OS, 3500mAh battery )
- HTC One M10 ( But not if it's the A9 / iPhone clone the new rumors point to )
- Nexus-N
 
The M10 rumor showed and said nothing about what the M10 looks like, it only said "If you like the A9, you'll love the M10."

If it's from a software perspective, then the A9 is an awesome phone. Sense was lightened up on a lot on the A9 and referenced stock Android a bit more than it did previously, when Sense was already pretty much the best of the OEM skins/UIs before that. And if they keep up with the fast updates (within 15 days of stock Android) on the M10, then that's HUGE.

If he means from the hardware perspective, then yeah, it's going to be a bit disappointing. But I don't see it going that way. I just don't see HTC dropping their signature boomsound speakers and rounded metal back design on their flagship M series. I hope they just keep it similar to the M8/M9 and put a fingerprint scanner on the back like the Nexus and LG phones, or even the side like the Xperia phones. The front would be fine too as long as they keep the front facing speakers. I can't have a phone without them now after having my M8.
 
Lucas Hood said:
I thought you were finished with Samsung after the Note 5. ;)
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Ha. I'm never finished.

Out of the few Samsung phones I've owned over the years, the Note 2 and Note 5 were really great, mainly due to them able to have root and custom ROM's which transform them from good phones, to great phones, thanks to some amazing developers out there.

I'll probably wait for the Note 6 with the SD830 chip, 8GB RAM, UHD screen,waterproof, 3,600mAh battery.
 
Zorachus said:
I'll probably wait for the Note 6 with the SD830 chip, 8GB RAM, UHD screen,waterproof, 3,600mAh battery.
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You consistently get these bogus wish list specs wrong every time you try, lol.
 
T4rd said:
You consistently get these bogus wish list specs wrong every time you try, lol.
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Dude I said that tongue in cheek.

SD830 ? That's a 2017 chip
8GB RAM ? Lol
4k screen ? Now that could possibly happen, but doubtful
 
I like the way the edge series phones look. After getting my M8 then unlocking and installing the GPE rom, I don't think I can go back to a Samsung phone. I want to buy a new phone just because, but the M8 runs just fine with the latest updates. I can't justify the upgrade.
 
Zorachus said:
Dude I said that tongue in cheek.

SD830 ? That's a 2017 chip
8GB RAM ? Lol
4k screen ? Now that could possibly happen, but doubtful
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Hard to tell when your main thing here is making highly speculative posts/guesses about devices that are still several months to a year out. ;)

It's kinda standard to use some sort of emoji when you're talking "tongue in cheek" to make that clear too.

Spaceninja said:
I like the way the edge series phones look. After getting my M8 then unlocking and installing the GPE rom, I don't think I can go back to a Samsung phone. I want to buy a new phone just because, but the M8 runs just fine with the latest updates. I can't justify the upgrade.
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Same here. No phone has came out since the M8 that's been worth upgrading to for me. It's running better than ever now on marshmallow. My wife's GS6 already going to shit just reinforced that for me.
 
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Spaceninja said:
I like the way the edge series phones look. After getting my M8 then unlocking and installing the GPE rom, I don't think I can go back to a Samsung phone. I want to buy a new phone just because, but the M8 runs just fine with the latest updates. I can't justify the upgrade.
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The M8 converted to GPE is one of the best Android phones of all time, an instant classic "Hall of Fame" Android phone. I loved my M8 GPE, just awesome

But sadly the GPE program is gone, so the One M10 won't have that option anymore, just Sense 8 or CM 13. But I will admit Sense is probably the best skin outside of stock vanilla. Sense is super smooth, no lag, and not a resource hog like TW.
 
I ran the Lollipop GPE ROM on my M8 for a few weeks. It was great for a few days, then became a total jankfest somehow. My phone was really slow to wake up/unlock and load things in general. The Sense ROMs seem to run much better in my experience and get much better battery life as well. The good thing about Sense 7+ too is the Theme store, so you can apply an AOSP type theme to it to look stockish Android. You can do this on Samsung phones as well, but it seems applying themes on them cause them to get janky too for some reason. It did on my wife's GS6 and multiple PocketNow review units as well at least.
 
JMccovery said:
This is the only thing that really caught my attention.

I do wonder if the delay in Marshmallow updates for the 2014 & 2015 flagships will utilize this new TW.
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Would be nice. That's another thing that has annoyed me with Samsung. As if fragmentation between Android revisions isn't enough, Samsung has their own Touchwiz variants for each of the predecessors of their phones. As in the UI on the Note 3 and 4 look different than Touchwiz on the Note 5 for some reason. They also don't port a lot of the latest Note features down to their previous Notes.
 
T4rd said:
Would be nice. That's another thing that has annoyed me with Samsung. As if fragmentation between Android revisions isn't enough, Samsung has their own Touchwiz variants for each of the predecessors of their phones. As in the UI on the Note 3 and 4 look different than Touchwiz on the Note 5 for some reason. They also don't port a lot of the latest Note features down to their previous Notes.
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The problem is that Samsung treats its software as a marketing tool for the generation of hardware that it's paired with. Not that other companies don't do something similar, but Samsung really does cut things off arbitrarily -- you're supposed to buy the latest phone if you want any new Samsung-specific features. Even Apple backports iOS features that aren't hardware- or performance-dependent.

That's hurting more than it helps, I think. It suggests that Samsung isn't interested in long-term loyalty, and doesn't think of TouchWiz as a full-fledged platform that can improve the quality of all its phones, not just the ones in the store right this second.
 
One of my biggest pet peeves with Samsung, is how they do their updates;

Let's take the S6, last years flagship device. Yes it will be getting the new Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow update, but still keep the same overall TW with some minor revisions in design.

But the new S7 will come out, again with Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow, but with an even newer and different Touchwiz, this all new TW will be the S7's only, and eventually on the Note 6, but the older S6 or Note 5 will NOT see this new Touchwiz, only the updated Android version.

Samsung is famous for doing this. The Note 3 / Note 4 was a great example, as was the S4 / S5. The S4 and Note 3 had the older ugly Touchwiz design, and then a year later the S5 and Note 4 release with an all new looking lighter Touchwiz, yeah the older S4 and Note 3 did get their Android version updated to the the current release, but TW didn't change on those phones, it still looked like the old ugly design, and only the S5 and Note 4 at the time had the new fresh TW.


Whereas HTC does it right with Sense. The One M7 launched with Sense 5 I think, then the M8 comes out with Sense 6, well eventually the older M7 got the Sense 6 update, and it changed the look and design of Sense, to be exactly that of the one on the M8. That's the way you do it right.
 
Think of how amazing it would be if Samsung released their phones with stock android and all of their features were downloaded from the app store. You could get updates directly from Google (like a nexus device) and wouldn't have to worry about your phone getting bogged down by needless updates to touchwiz. Hell, put touchwiz on as a launcher to keep the people who like touchwiz happy, there's literally dozens of them.

If they did this, it would be a game changer in the cellphone market.
 
AltTabbins said:
Think of how amazing it would be if Samsung released their phones with stock android and all of their features were downloaded from the app store. You could get updates directly from Google (like a nexus device) and wouldn't have to worry about your phone getting bogged down by needless updates to touchwiz. Hell, put touchwiz on as a launcher to keep the people who like touchwiz happy, there's literally dozens of them.

If they did this, it would be a game changer in the cellphone market.
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It'd be amazing for the kind of people who frequent forums like this... but I don't think it'd matter to the majority of buyers. Stock Android appeals more to the enthusiast crowd than anything else.

Really, Samsung would be better off streamlining and unifying TouchWiz. Make it not only run more efficiently, but provide a common experience across multiple generations of phones. Show someone who bought a Galaxy S5 two years ago that they matter almost as much as someone who's ready to buy the Galaxy S7 on launch day.

Say what you will about new iOS versions running slower on older iPhones, but Apple's software upgrade policy does improve loyalty. You don't feel like you're out of the loop the very second a newer phone shows up.
 
Aurelius said:
It'd be amazing for the kind of people who frequent forums like this... but I don't think it'd matter to the majority of buyers. Stock Android appeals more to the enthusiast crowd than anything else.

Really, Samsung would be better off streamlining and unifying TouchWiz. Make it not only run more efficiently, but provide a common experience across multiple generations of phones. Show someone who bought a Galaxy S5 two years ago that they matter almost as much as someone who's ready to buy the Galaxy S7 on launch day.

Say what you will about new iOS versions running slower on older iPhones, but Apple's software upgrade policy does improve loyalty. You don't feel like you're out of the loop the very second a newer phone shows up.
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Yep, no one even knows WTF "stock vanilla Android" even means. I bet most people think their phones are running Galaxy OS made by Samsung, that has a couple Google apps on it, a lot of people aren't even that familiar with the Android name. The Nexus phone line is super niche, ultra rare compared to the iPhone and Galaxy line.

Tocuhwiz is the most popular Android UI out there, way more so than vanilla. How many S6's and Note 5's, and Edge's were sold in 2015, compared to the Nexus 6P, 5X, and Moto Nexus 6 ? I think the Nexus phones combined maybe sold 3 to 5 million all together, at that absolute best case, whereas all the Galaxy phones combined sold approx. 75 million, maybe 100 million for 2015.
 
You can't compare sales numbers between the most advetised phone in the world with the least. If Google put in as much marketing as Samsung, those numbers would be different.
 
I'm sure samsung's ad budget still blows away googles for phones, but I've seen 1000x more nexus ads in the past year than ever before on tv. Also I've seen more nexus 6p ads online than maybe anything else combined in the past months. I'm sure part of that reason is that google knows I own a nexus 6 but still it bordered on the point of ridiculous.
 
I am excited to see what this new optimized touchwiz that Google helped with. Going to wait a big longer. My G3 running cm 12.1 with a custom kernal is nexus smooth.
 
I'm really getting tired of Samsung's front design on their phones. The logo on the front is not needed anymore, and the cheesy chrome speaker grille on top needs to be changed to black or color of the phone, and the bottom home button, needs to get rid of the chrome around it, looks cheap.

I have to say, Apple makes the front of their phone look slick, with no branding or cheesy shiny parts on the front either. Same with the Nexus line, and OnePlus line too.
 
The one thing that always bothered me about Samsung was that they can't make a truly black phone. The reason you make a phone black is so that you can't see the bezels as well or at all while watching videos since it seems to just blend in with the back. But they decide to always go with a bluish color.
 
-Strelok- said:
The one thing that always bothered me about Samsung was that they can't make a truly black phone. The reason you make a phone black is so that you can't see the bezels as well or at all while watching videos since it seems to just blend in with the back. But they decide to always go with a bluish color.
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Good point, the blue looks lame in the sunlight. And the one thing I like about the Nexus phones, is it's a black monolith, very futuristic and minimal design is the best. Whereas Samsung's phone today look cheesy, and almost like the Honda civic with the wing and fart can exhaust.

Samsung needs to put the logo on the rear of the phone. Paint the top speaker grille black. Ditch the chrome ring around the home button. And make a black not blue color.
 
Samsung Galaxy S7 preliminary size comparison
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Sams...vs-iPhone-6s-Galaxy-S6-LG-G4-and-more_id78195

Wow, I have to give a clapping hand to Samsung for this. I'm still not in the market for the S7, but thank the Lord Samsung had the balls to actually make the phone thicker for a larger 3,000mAh battery and minimizing the camera bump. Nice to see a a manufacturer not be so insanely focused on making the phone paper thin for zero reason.

- S7 = 142.5 x 69.5 x 7.9 mm
- S6 = 143.4 x 70.5 x 6.8 mm
- iPhone 6S = 138.3 x 67.1 x 7.1 mm
 
Zorachus said:
Samsung Galaxy S7 preliminary size comparison
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Sams...vs-iPhone-6s-Galaxy-S6-LG-G4-and-more_id78195

Wow, I have to give a clapping hand to Samsung for this. I'm still not in the market for the S7, but thank the Lord Samsung had the balls to actually make the phone thicker for a larger 3,000mAh battery and minimizing the camera bump. Nice to see a a manufacturer not be so insanely focused on making the phone paper thin for zero reason.

- S7 = 142.5 x 69.5 x 7.9 mm
- S6 = 143.4 x 70.5 x 6.8 mm
- iPhone 6S = 138.3 x 67.1 x 7.1 mm
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I do think it's a nice trend, although Samsung admittedly didn't have a lot of choice. It got excoriated for GS6 battery life so mediocre that it makes the iPhone 6 look like a longevity champ. Unless its screens and processors were much more efficient, it wasn't going to get away with the same thickness this year.
 
I'm stuck between getting a S7 or the Edge version, not sure how practical the Edge would be compared to the S7 in day to day use and watching videos.
 
I'm leaning VERY hard towards the GS7e right now. I thought I was very happy with my Nexus 6P but I truly didn't anticipate Samsung actually doing things like making the phone thicker for more battery and lowering the megapixels to improve the camera.
 
In case anyone thought Samsung wasn't serious about getting rid of bloatware, this was just noticed:

NO TOUCHWIZ MUSIC OR VIDEO PLAYER FOR SAMSUNG GALAXY S7 AND S7 EDGE.

"Both these stock apps have been replaced with the Google Play Music and Google Play Movies apps. So if you run any audio file in your future Galaxy S7 device. It will automatically opens in the Google Play Music app or the one you selected as the third party music player. But there will be no TouchWiz official Music Player which we used to open since the start of the Samsung Galaxy S series."

No TouchWiz Music and Video Player for Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge.
 
If I were to get one it would be the g7 edge. But at the current cost is to much. 32$ a month! Plus I need to see this new tw version that Google helped Samsung with.
 
Vengance_01 said:
If I were to get one it would be the g7 edge. But at the current cost is to much. 32$ a month! Plus I need to see this new tw version that Google helped Samsung with.
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Thats alot of money for a phone that will be obsolete in 12 months, and by obsolete I mean left behind on updates. I may wait and see how desperate the early buyers will be to get rid of their S7 to get a note at the end of the year. Android phones tend to drop in value so fast these days, I'd be lucky to get $300 for my G4 right now.
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
so... they're not getting rid of the note and replacing it with the S7 Edge are they?
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The Note 6 is still on track for an August release, rumored spec's;

- 5.8" screen
- 6GB RAM
- SD830 / Exynos Mongoose
- 3,600mAh battery, maybe larger
- Waterproof
- Overall smaller phone than the Note 5, but with a slightly larger screen
 
Zorachus said:
In case anyone thought Samsung wasn't serious about getting rid of bloatware, this was just noticed:

NO TOUCHWIZ MUSIC OR VIDEO PLAYER FOR SAMSUNG GALAXY S7 AND S7 EDGE.

"Both these stock apps have been replaced with the Google Play Music and Google Play Movies apps. So if you run any audio file in your future Galaxy S7 device. It will automatically opens in the Google Play Music app or the one you selected as the third party music player. But there will be no TouchWiz official Music Player which we used to open since the start of the Samsung Galaxy S series."

No TouchWiz Music and Video Player for Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge.
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When it comes to Samsung bloat, it's not the redundant apps that annoys people. It's all those shit running in the background such as eye stay and hand wave or whatever they call those. Also, with all these RAM, if Samsung still cannot multitask as well as other brands, it is pretty ridiculous. We should start a betting pool on whether Samsung would have the "over aggressive" RAM management (or "TouchWiz needs that much RAM so we're killing everything else") issue.


P.S. I doubt that the SD830 will come out in time for an August launch. So I would throw all that rumor for the Note 6 out the window.
 
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